We at PES, like many of you reading this, are currently preparing for Valencia and the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition. We’re proud to be media partners and you’ll find our latest publication in abundance at the show. We’ll also be meeting up with many of you there – if you’d like to fix-up a quick chat, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
You’ll be able to find our magazine at the Media Point, and we think you’ll find that it’s well worth you while to thumb through it in your quieter moments. Why? We’ll it’s our biggest and best ever.
Feed-in Tariffs come under the microscope in this issue, driven in part by a statistic that caught our eye from Bloomberg New Energy Finance: “Governments last year gave $43 billion to $46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices known as feed-in tariffs and alternative energy credits. That compares with the $557 billion that the International Energy Agency last month said was spent to subsidise fossil fuels.”
To recap, that’s $557 billion for the gargantuan fossil fuel industry, whereas we in the PV industry get a small slice of the $46 billion awarded to renewables. And yet every one of those dollars – or Euros – counts. We would not be where we are today without subsidies or Feed-in Tariffs, as I’m sure you’re well aware.
Elsewhere in the magazine, we’re delighted carry our first roundtable feature, in which a selection of industry heavyweights give their opinions on the hottest topics within PV. It’s an innovative and exciting format that we’re inordinately proud of.
You’ll also find that we’ve included a selection of features that focus on production issues relating to thin-film and modules, and we’ve the usual mix of analysis and long-form articles from every sector of the industry. We’ve comment from some of the industry’s biggest commercial operators – as always – and our friends at the Fraunhofer institute have supplied us with yet another illuminating study.
But don’t take our word for it, pick up a copy at the show and see for yourself. And don’t forget, if you see us in Valencia, please come and introduce yourself – we’d be delighted to meet you.
Enjoy the show.
Simeon de la Torre,
Editor, Power and Energy Solutions
